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Wednesday Topspin: Young Americans
Before we continue with our Davis Cup preview, let’s start with the young Americans in Dallas. Harrison and Kudla: Nothing came easy, but it has been a good tournament so far for the local teens....
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Saturday Topspin: American Underdogs
Good day for teens: It wasn’t easy, but both Bernard Tomic and Ryan Harrison find themselves in the second round at Indian Wells. Tomic had a hard-fought match against surprise qualifier and doubles...
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Sunday Topspin: Young and Restless
Upset central: Indian Wells is turning into a huge event for American tennis. As I noted yesterday, U.S. players took six of their seven first round matches. I assumed that all those qualifiers and...
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Wednesday Topspin: Young Sneaks In
Miami draw is set: All 96 players, including 12 qualifiers, are placed. Matches begin with the first round of the bottom half of the draw in a couple of hours. One of the few surprises out of...
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Friday Topspin: Youth is Returned
Goodbye, Americans: Jack Sock had his chance, and he let it slip away. The Miami draw gave him a great chance of racking up plenty of ranking points through a first-round matchup with Carlos Berlocq,...
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Tuesday Topspin: Catching Up
Rankings report: It’s a fascinating time of the year in the rankings, as the French Open approaches and the value of a ranking in the top 32 (or 34 or 35, depending on injuries) rises. As I wrote in...
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What Grega Zemlja Can Tell Us About American Tennis
Last week, virtually unknown Slovenian qualifier Grega Zemlja reached the final in Vienna. Like many players–Eastern Europeans in particular–in the back half of the top 100, he has finally established...
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How Much Do Wild Cards Matter?
Last week, I presented a lot of data that demonstrated how American (and to a lesser extent, French, Australian, and British) players receive the bulk of ATP wild cards, mostly because there are so...
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Dodig’s Consistency, IBM’s Offensive, and Hopeless Wild Cards
Ivan Dodig just missed out on a seeding at this year’s US Open. Ranked 37th when seeds were assigned, he had ascended as high as #35, largely on the strength of his fourth-round showing at Wimbledon....
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Teenagers, Thirty-Somethings, and Americans at Grand Slams
I’ve put together a few reports showing how age distributions and US presence have changed over the years at Grand Slams. Let’s start with player age. The average age of players in the Wimbledon men’s...
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First Look: Francis Tiafoe
Last night at the Citi Open in Washington, Francis Tiafoe played his first tour-level main draw match. For a 16-year-old with almost no professional experience, he put on a good show, making Evgeny...
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Serve-and-Pray: The Quirks of Isner’s Early Exit
The big story after Steve Johnson‘s upset of John Isner today was Isner’s unhappiness with his court assignment. Still, for those of us more interested in the game itself than in post-match carping,...
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Donald Young’s Perpetual Hopes and the Lefty Serve That Isn’t
Donald Young celebrated his 25th birthday last week, and if you’ve been following the ATP for any part of the last decade, you know all about his talent, his potential, and his underwhelming results....
View ArticleThe Proud Tradition of Americans Skipping Monte Carlo
The Monte Carlo Masters is unique among the ATP’s 1,000 series events. The stakes are high, but attendance isn’t mandatory, so while most of the game’s top players show up, a few take the week off. No...
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Tracking European Dominance With Fictional Laver Cups
Embed from Getty Images Italian translation at settesei.it No matter what happens this weekend in Chicago, tennis fans can safely say that Europe holds the edge over the rest of the world in the men’s...
View ArticleMackie McDonald’s Secret Weapon
Italian translation at settesei.it In the first round on Monday, the 23-year-old American Mackenzie McDonald defeated young Russian Andrey Rublev in four sets, 6-4 6-4 2-6 6-4. While Rublev missed...
View ArticleFrances Tiafoe’s Narrow Margins
Yesterday, Frances Tiafoe added another breakthrough to his young career with a fourth-round defeat of 20th seed Grigor Dimitrov at the Australian Open. The whole tournament has been a coming-out...
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